


Anniversary

by rubyofkukundu



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Schmoop, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 01:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9694025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyofkukundu/pseuds/rubyofkukundu
Summary: John Childermass and John Segundus reminisce about beginnings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for the end of the book.

In Starecross Hall there was a little parlour that Mr Segundus liked to use as his own. It was not, you must understand, so grand as some of the other rooms in the house, and neither did it contain so many odd furnishings. No indeed; like its master, this little parlour was altogether small and neat and (at first glance) perfectly ordinary. It contained a good fire (for it was January), blue paper upon the walls, and several pieces of stout, comfortable furniture, including two armchairs and a good-sized desk.

Yet on this day, Mr Segundus was not present in the little parlour. Instead its occupant was one John Childermass, who was sat in one of the armchairs, with a pair of spectacles on his nose, engaged upon reading a journal.

Childermass? Here? Oh, do not think this so very strange. Childermass, you see, had made Starecross his (more or less) permanent home for the past several years, and you were quite as likely to see he in any of Mr Segundus' private rooms as you were to see Mr Segundus himself. Indeed, it was perhaps even more common to see Childermass and Mr Segundus in each other's company than it was to see them apart.

Why, as if to prove the truth of this statement, who then entered the little parlour but Mr Segundus? He was holding some sheets of paper and frowning.

"John," said Mr Segundus, closing the door behind him, "have you seen my...?" At this point he looked up and upon observing Childermass cried, "Oh, you have them again!" Mr Segundus walked over and sat himself in the other armchair, so as to look at Childermass more fully.

"Honestly, John," continued Mr Segundus, leaning forward, "we must get you a pair of spectacles for your own use, for I find I am never able to read when I wish to." Here, Mr Segundus brandished the papers he was still holding. "Not when you are wearing mine all the time."

Childermass smiled and looked over the top of his book. "I hardly need them enough to warrant a pair of my own."

Mr Segundus tutted (but he was smiling also). "I would never have thought you capable of vanity, John; and in this of all things!"

Childermass sighed, good-naturedly, and removed the spectacles from his nose. He held them out. "Here. Take them."

Yet Mr Segundus drew back. He looked to Childermass. "Are you sure you will not mind me taking them?"

"They are your spectacles," stated Childermass.

"Yes," agreed Mr Segundus, "but my reading is not so very urgent if you are engaged in something important."

Childermass huffed and gave him a smile. "Take them."

And so, thanking Childermass, Mr Segundus took the spectacles and placed them upon his own nose. He then sat back in the armchair and settled down to read.

Childermass, meanwhile, picked up his journal again. He squinted at it for a few moments then held it out at arm's length and squinted at it some more. With a sigh, Childermass put the journal down upon the table beside him and instead, resting his head upon one hand, turned to regard Mr Segundus.

It was when the clock upon the mantelpiece had ticked its way through ten minutes that Childermass, smiling, spoke. "Eighteen years," said he.

"I beg your pardon?" asked Mr Segundus, still reading.

"It is the tenth of January," said Childermass.

Mr Segundus frowned. "The tenth of January?" He lowered his papers and looked up at Childermass. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

Childermass smiled some more. "The date when we first met," he clarified. "The tenth of January 1807. We have now known each other for eighteen years."

"Has it really been eighteen years?" wondered Mr Segundus aloud. Then suddenly he frowned again. "Oh, but the tenth of January? No. Not by my recollection. Forgive me, but Mr Norrell made the statues of York Minster speak in February. I distinctly remember that it was February."

Childermass' smile curled up at the edges.

Mr Segundus' frown was interrupted by a blush. His eyes widened. "Oh, I always forget that you were there when Mr Honeyfoot and I went to visit Mr Norrell's library! I am sorry, John. Of all the things not to remember... But you know that for most of that visit..."

"Yes, I do know," returned Childermass, still smiling. "And it is no fault of yours that you do not remember." He raised his eyebrows. "Indeed, I had known of you for some while before that day in the library, so perhaps it is foolish of me to set so much store by it, purely because it was then that we first stood in the same room."

Mr Segundus favoured him with a fond expression, then turned and put his papers to one side. "When it comes to dates," said Mr Segundus, "I always think of the eleventh of January 1816. Nine years ago, I suppose, come tomorrow."

"Oh?" said Childermass. "And what date is that?"

Mr Segundus smiled down at his knees. "It is the date upon the letter you sent to me, informing me that you had recommended Sir Walter put Lady Pole into my care." Mr Segundus looked up. "You had said you would help me, and you did just that. Even though nothing obliged you to do so."

Childermass looked at him. "Many things obliged me."

Mr Segundus blushed again.

But then Childermass stood. He stepped across, dragged Mr Segundus up by the elbows and pulled him back, now with an arm about Mr Segundus' waist, until they were both of them sat in Childermass' chair, with Mr Segundus upon Childermass' knee.

Mr Segundus laughed, even though his eyes were wide. "Oh, John! Be careful! You must think of your back!"

"My back is fine," retorted Childermass, hugging Mr Segundus closer. "Besides, there is nothing to you. You are light as a feather."

Mr Segundus huffed and settled further into the embrace, resting his head against Childermass'.1

"You think of the date of that letter, then," mused Childermass, "and not the date, one year later, that we broke the enchantment upon Lady Pole?"

Mr Segundus took up one of Childermass' hands and pressed it between his own. "It is true that that was a momentous day," said he. "To think that without you I would not have dared to accomplish any magic! I would not have... You were like some angel of salvation, to both Lady Pole and I."

Childermass laughed. "An angel now? I have never felt like one of those, and I especially did not upon that day."

Mr Segundus smiled down at their fingers. "But, whilst performing magic and saving Lady Pole were more than I ever could have hoped for, it was not then that I discovered how much of a good man you are. That had already happened." He turned in Childermass' arms.

"The eleventh of January 1816 it was, then?" asked Childermass, and when Mr Segundus smiled in return, Childermass leaned in and kissed him.

"But," said Mr Segundus, when they broke apart and he had settled back against Childermass' shoulder, "that was only the beginning, of course. When we wrote to each other, when we spoke, when you revealed the King's book to us all, I came to realise that I wasn't merely in the presence of a good man; I was in the presence of a great one."

Childermass laughed some more. "Oh, flattery! You could flatter the very moon down from the sky with that talk. Well then, let me do one better. I had known, John, that you were special immediately from that day we first met, a full eighteen years ago. There in the library at Hurtfew I said to myself, 'You must keep an eye on this one, John Childermass, for he will achieve big things.'"

Mr Segundus looked down at their hands to clasp them together. "I am sure you did not think that."

"Oh, yes I did," returned Childermass. "And I was proved right."

"Why," exclaimed Mr Segundus, "I have barely achieved anything! I am sure you can agree that Mr Strange and Mr Norrell..."

"Yet I did not get the full measure of you on that first day," continued Childermass. "For as I grew to know you, even more did I grow to respect you (more so than any other magician). And when you invited me to visit Starecross with Vinculus that first time... You treated us both as your equals with no artifice, John. You heaped generosity upon generosity on us."

Mr Segundus brushed Childermass' thumb with his own. "Perhaps I was generous only because I wished you would stay."

"I refuse to believe it," said Childermass fondly. "You would be generous to the devil himself if you thought it would make him but feel better."

At this, Mr Segundus huffed. "Honestly, I am not so selfless as you make out. Truly I am not."

Childermass smiled and pressed his nose to Mr Segundus' cheek. "And thus the years passed and we come to the fourth of March, nigh on six years ago. Do you remember our conversation that day?"

Mr Segundus closed his eyes. "Almost word for word, John." He smiled softly and looked to the fireplace. "Is it true that it has been nearly six years?"

"Aye," said Childermass. "Six happy ones."

"And yet," said Mr Segundus, "it is not the fourth of March that I remember the most." His smile grew. "It is the twenty-ninth."

Childermass frowned. "And what, pray, was the twenty-ninth?"

"You do not remember it?" asked Mr Segundus. He turned his head and spoke low into Childermass' ear.

"Oh." Childermass' arm tightened around Mr Segundus' waist. "So that is the date you mark, is it?" And, laughing, Childermass turned so that he might give Mr Segundus a kiss, this one much longer than the last. (Indeed, so long was this kiss that Childermass was obliged to pause so that he might remove the spectacles from Mr Segundus' nose and put them to one side.)

When, finally, the kiss ended, Mr Segundus said, "Then what do you suppose we should do? For it seems that we have had so many beginnings together that we do not know which one of them to commemorate. Has it been six years for us, or nine years, or even, as you proclaim, eighteen?"

"It has been them all," returned Childermass, smiling, "and, more importantly, John, it will be the many years that are yet to come."

"Oh, _my dear_ ," said Mr Segundus, and kissed him again.3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1\. Was it not odd that Mr Segundus and Childermass were happy to display such affection in a place where anybody might walk in upon them at any time? In short: no, it was not. Some years ago, you see, Mr Segundus and Childermass had together cast a spell that caused the occupants of Starecross Hall to think it completely normal that two men might wish to live together and indulge in the type of romance one generally finds only between a husband and wife.2

2\. What Mr Segundus and Childermass had not realised, however, was that their spell had not been fully effective. The housekeeper of Starecross Hall, through no fault of her own, happened to be impervious to such magic, which had left her unaffected. To be sure, the housekeeper thought it a little unusual the way in which Mr Segundus and Childermass carried on, but she was so fond of Mr Segundus and so fond of Childermass also, that she was altogether pleased to see that they had found happiness together. (Go back)

3\. Sometime after this kiss had ended, and Mr Segundus and Childermass had been sitting quietly for several minutes, Mr Segundus said, "With so many years ahead of us, John, we shall most certainly have to get you a pair of spectacles of your own." To which suggestion Childermass laughed (and, I might add, refused to commit himself one way or another). (Go back)


End file.
